The Ohio Department of Health issued an updated traveling advisory for anyone visiting from certain states, or for Ohio residents returning from those states.
After seven weeks on its own travel advisory, Ohio dropped off the list released Jan. 20. The state’s positivity rate, as calculated by the Johns Hopkins University COVID Tracking Project, fell to 13 percent.
The advisory includes any state with a positive testing rate at or over 15%, with a recommendation that anyone coming from those states self-quarantine for 14 days.
The states included in the list released Jan. 20 include: Idaho, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Mississippi, Kansas, Utah, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma.
Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wyoming were noted of having irregularities in reporting cases and an accurate positivity rate could not be calculated, the ODH said.
The ODH updates the list every Wednesday.
“Obviously, people should be careful no matter where they go,” said the governor. The list of states will be updated every week, according to the governor.
“It is an advisory, not an order,” said the governor, “but we want to notify people, and would ask them to protect everyone, to protect their family, and protect others, if you are coming from one of those states you’ve been visiting there, we would ask you to self quarantine. We know all of these things are sacrifices, but we hope that these are short term sacrifices for something we all want to see, and that is to get this virus under control and be able to do more things as we move into the fall.”